Mark Rothko Song

Words and music by dar williams The blue it speaks so full It’s like the beauty one can barely stand Or too much things dropped in your hand And there’s a green like the peace In your heart sometimes Printed underneath the sheets of ashy snow And there’s a blue like where the urban angels go, very bright Now the calder mobile tips a biomorphic sphere Then it swings it’s dangling pieces Round to other paintings here Your behavior is so male It’s like you can’t explain yourself to me I think I’ll ask renoir to tea For his flowers are as real as they are all the time And the sunlight sets the furniture aglow It’s a pleasant time as far as people go, how far do they go? Well his roses are perfect and his words have no wings I know what he can give me and I like to know these things I met her at the funeral She said I don’t know what he meant to me I just know he affected me An effect not unlike his art, I believe The service starts and we are in the know He had so much to say but more to show, and ain’t that true of life? So we weep for a person who lived at great cost Yet we barely knew his powers till we sensed that we had lost A friend and I in a museum room She says, look at mark rothko’s side Did you know about his suicide? Some folks were born with a foot in the grave, but not me, of course And she smiles as if to say we’re in the know Then she names a coffee place where we can go, uptown Now the painting is desperate, but the crowds wash away In a crowd of kind pedestrians who’ve seen enough today